Lawmakers are back in Richmond today, tinkering with the Virginia budget, approving construction and trying again to pick judges.

Legislators will accept or reject Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's revisions to measures passed this winter, most notably the $77 billion budget for 2008-2010 that takes effect July 1.

They also will give final approval to $1.4 billion in bonds for bricks-and-mortar projects across the state and attempt one more time to fill 36 judgeships, including a seat on the State Corporation Commission.

Should lawmakers fail to agree on judges, it will fall to Kaine to select many of them. The impasse on judges is another manifestation of the General Assembly's partisan split -- a House controlled by Republicans and a Senate run by Democrats.

Today's session could provide a glimpse of the next battle over transportation, with legislators testing ideas for financing roads and rails, including new sales and fuel taxes.

The General Assembly will tackle highway and transit finance -- for the third time in as many years -- in a special session later this year.

Kaine is proposing 41 amendments to the budget, only one of which has generated significant controversy. It would save $1.5 million by adding lower-cost medicines to a state-managed inventory of behavioral drugs for Medicaid patients.

But the opposition of Senate Education and Health Committee Chairman R. Edward Houck, D-Spotsylvania, could portend the amendment's defeat. Houck and mental-health advocates say the proposal would restrict patient access to the most effective drugs.